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I think you’re talking about is a slightly narrower concept: altruistic seriousness about things that are important AND urgent. Everybody is serious about at least a few non-urgent selfish concerns. In the case of children/elderly possibly “unimportant” as well.
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Also: Non-seriousness is serious. It is central to creating the value which makes seriousness in other things worthwhile. Liberal societies are worth defending with cops in part because they make good jokes, music. Dictatorships are less worth defending in part because they don’t
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Yes. This is one of the clear conclusions from Sarah Perry’s book on suicide and stuff she’s written since. Life isn’t intrinsically worthwhile and valuable enough to defend at arbitrary cost. It has to be made worth defending at any given level.
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I’m mostly not a serious person and don’t concern myself with serious things in your broad sense (altruistic, urgent) unless I’m being paid to. Using your calculus it’s because without pay I can rarely bring myself to care enough directly to do a good job.
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